


Killed Upon the Pavement (Bonnie We're Immortalized)

by Hail_hawkeye



Series: Hannibal Lecter's Unconventional Love Language [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic Will Graham, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hannigram - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Injury, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:22:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28397631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hail_hawkeye/pseuds/Hail_hawkeye
Summary: Hannibal wants to teach Will about the love stories in the stars. Will just wants to lie on the bow and fall inwards, letting the world swallow him whole.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Hannibal Lecter's Unconventional Love Language [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095266
Comments: 8
Kudos: 95





	Killed Upon the Pavement (Bonnie We're Immortalized)

**Author's Note:**

> Three ideas came to me, and suddenly this entire fanfiction was created. I am working on a second installment, perhaps even a full series of one-shots! The title is from the song Cold Love by Rainbow Kitten Surprise.
> 
> Huge thank you to my beta readers:  
> -Sarah  
> -Peter  
> -@milsta on a03  
> -@anti_septic_freak on a03  
> -Lauren

Pain was the first thing Will Graham felt as he was ripped from the throes of a nightmare, eyes opening, pupils blown in feral terror. Fear engulfed him as he spent what felt like agonizing hours reorienting himself to recognize any part of his surroundings, however coming up short with the luck of his memory and the god awful, shit show of a head injury. His mouth felt heavy and dry. His tongue, weighed down by the taste of sleep, seemed to choke him. Only when he heard a lack of whines and the feeling of wet noses nudging him awake did he realize where he was. Nestled on a mattress, twisted in a light blue silk-thread sheet, tightly sandwiched between two barren mahogany wood walls stacked to the ceiling with cupboards: a room sitting at the bow of a C45 Bavarian sailboat. The cabin felt hot and stuffy, the bed below him damp, from an accumulation of the cold sweat and minute tremors that wracked Will’s thin frame. He’d already been described as a “twig” of a man but after the fall he’d managed to lose a substantial amount of weight resulting in a hollow appearance, oddly ironic to Will when he considered the aching hole settled deep in his bones. He was tired. Not a sleep kind of tired, though the last time he’d had a full-night’s rest he couldn’t say, but a kind of tired wherein one can no longer distinguish the line between what is real and what is glazed in a depressed fugue.

Slowly turning his sore neck to look over at the clock sat on one of the few free surfaces in the room, Will squinted, reading “2:32 AM” through the red halo created by the sole light source. His head throbbed and his chest ached leaving his stomach swimming. If the pull and sharp pain shooting through his jaw and cheek said anything it was that the oxycodone he’d popped into his mouth after their half-assed dinner had long since worn off. With a blind sweep of Hannibal’s side of the bed, Will deduced that the man had never settled in to sleep, leaving the left side of the mattress cold and flat. Sitting up meticulously and sliding himself to the edge of the bed leaving his bare feet dangling over the step down into the main room of the living quarters, Will took a few quivering breaths before walking through the hall towards the bathroom. He quickly glanced at himself in the mirror, after frantically wiping himself down with a discarded towel that sat in the corner of the stall. He wasn’t sure who was staring back at him, a familiar tug of dissociative paranoia, but the desolate, vacant eyes that bore into him, in no way, could have been his. The anxiety deep in his chest seemed to slosh around with the ground beneath him.

The boat itself, creatively named the _Iscariot_ , was a sailboat, though in Will’s opinion it was closer to that of a yacht size and interior. It occasionally still crossed Will’s mind that the name was chosen specifically after the story of Judas and his grand betrayal in the Bible. The blatant symbolism hung in the air like a thick cloud of strangulating smoke. Hannibal’s consistent need for high class and distinct order was reflected by the vessel they were inhabiting for the long-term future, yet Will had still been pleasantly surprised by the older man’s choice when Chiyoh had essentially hand delivered them to their new home. A three-cabin sailboat, with three full sized beds, two bathrooms and a spacious living and cooking area, all cut from mahogany wood, with eggshell accents to create an open feeling. For a pair trying to remain unseen, it sure seemed like an eye-catcher, but to expect any less from Hannibal would have been wishful thinking. The main cabin lead into a kitchen, not comparable to Hannibal’s palace of a kitchen in Baltimore, but fully equipped for their inevitable feasts once they found a place to settle. This boat was a far cry from anything he had ever been on, let alone worked on, during his time in Louisiana, but Will had no complaints. It was clean, neat, and safe from any prying eyes.

The hull swayed with the waves, as Will reached out to the mahogany dining table to steady himself. Despite having been on the water for several weeks he had found himself unable to get his sea legs secured under him. Perhaps it was in part the fact that his injuries had left him incapacitated for a far longer period of time than that of Hannibal’s wounds, or perhaps he just hadn’t fully grasped how they’d ended up in this position in the first place. To Will, the Lithuanian man seemed immortal, untouchable. The wounds he had acquired had either healed entirely or Hannibal had simply become indifferent to the pain, with the only reminders being angry red lines marring his washed out built figure. They still paled in comparison to the ugly, round scarring etched upon his back, a sore reminder of the Verger farm fiasco. Will, on the other hand, must have contracted every medical complication known to man. Repeated infections and torn stitches had kept Will in a constant stream of pain. There wasn’t much he could have done either way, with 56 stitches in his cheek and 27 keeping his gums together, eating anything that was not liquid based usually resulted in a wish for death to finally take him. Chiyoh had been a blessing in keeping the boat stocked with any food, medical and living supplies they could have needed. However, most unfortunate for Hannibal, the majority of the food were non-perishables or canned foods, a stark contrast to his typical array of fresh cuisine.

There had been an unspoken understanding between the both of them in terms of where they stood with each other. Chaste kisses and affectionate touches had been exchanged under circumstances where one of the two was feeling particularly distressed. Though diving headfirst off a cliff, suicide-homicide style had not been Hannibal’s original plan, it had become clear that both of them staying alive was; Hannibal had made good on his promise of that. Admittedly, there had been moments in Will’s recovery where Hannibal was forced to lock away any and all sharp objects. Ever still the psychiatrist and doctor he is, Hannibal, perturbed but concerned, had lectured Will on the fact that he had become a harm to himself and potentially others, and that from that point onwards there were necessary actions to be taken to keep them safe. Those were the long days, where the older man adamantly refused to let him out of his sight, forcing him to shower with the door ajar, eat solely with spoons, and make consistent conversation in an attempt to get the younger man to speak his mind. Will wishes he could scrub those days from his mind. Fortunately, not long ago, they had been able to settle into a routine. Nothing eccentric, but for the first time to both men it was seemingly the most normal thing they’d ever had.

The kitchen and dining area had been cleared and thoroughly cleaned, with every dish sitting in the drying rack, though Will had no recollection of having done any of the work, rather falling into unconsciousness after his pain medication had been gifted to him (Hannibal had made a fair case for being the sole handler of the “risky” medications that one could potentially abuse, and frankly Will didn’t have it in him to argue with that). Following the small hallway, with the unused bedrooms on either side of the stairs leading outside of the cabin, he hesitantly walked up towards the saltwater breeze.

The temperature was surprisingly suitable for the fact that it was two in the morning, but Will remained shaken up by the terrors he’d seen in the night; ones which had left names and screams dying on his lips. He recognized that he likely would have benefitted from bringing a blanket with him, but every touch, smell and sight seemed to assault and startle his senses at the very moment threatening to throw him into a full-blown meltdown. There was an additional moment of temporary panic that swallowed Will when he didn’t immediately have eyes on the one other occupant of the _Iscariot_ , but it was quickly subdued when he saw a dark form laying on the sunbathing deck of the bow, situated right above their private cabin. He had his arms resting on his chest, hands clasped, a rolled towel sitting behind his head as a makeshift pillow. One foot was planted on the ground, leg bent at the knee, while the other simply lay supine with the rest of his body. There was an instance in which the moon light of the empty night sky shone down a beam that emphasized the deep shadows that sculpted the high features of his face. Something in Will’s mind felt compelled to make him hyperaware of the fact that he seemed to be intruding upon a private moment, but the overriding, all-consuming hopelessness took lead in pushing him forwards from the stern to where Hannibal was lying.

“You never made it to bed.”

Hannibal’s head turned slightly to glance at the younger man, eyes glinting and upturned slightly, pulled by a small smile. He carried a relaxed air to him, wearing only a pair of light gray boat shorts, and a ruffled salmon dress shirt, top button undone, sleeves rolled at the elbow. As Will slowly laid down, minding his bruises and wounds, Hannibal met his glance for a brief moment before rolling his neck back to stare at the darkness encompassed by stars glimmering around the pale moon stretching across the sky. Will’s, _I missed you, I needed you_ , blew through the breeze. It remained unspoken but silently acknowledged between the two. Only inches apart, Will yearned to melt into Hannibal’s side, craved the company and the comfort he so desperately sought out, but in this moment, he couldn’t allow himself that vulnerability. Not to a man who led him to this state of inner turmoil that left Will fighting himself tooth and nail, begging to comprehend what his life had become.

“It was midnight once I had cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen. It seemed trivial to waste a beautiful night to sleep.” Hannibal stated, his accent heavy and worn with the work of the day managing the sails, and studying the maps directing their course.

Will wasn’t sure whether the silence would linger. He must have reeked of pain and fever, but Hannibal had made no advances on mentioning it leaving Will feeling ill at ease.

“It was Nietzsche who first said there is reason to madness, in allusion to love.”

This was a conversation Will would have happily avoided, yet his mouth refused to form words. His mind, on the other hand, struggled against waves of incoherent thoughts.

Will’s gaze was directed to the north as Hannibal pointed out a particularly bright star.

“Alpha Andromeda, the clearest visible star in the Andromeda constellation. The Greco-Roman astronomer Ptolemy classified it as one of the forty-eight classic constellations alongside Perseus. The Great Galaxy of Andromeda, referred to as M31 in accordance with Charles Messeir’s objects, is evident to the naked eye. Clear as day, a spiral galaxy in true beauty”

He didn’t want to listen to Hannibal talk about the stars, he wanted to sit on the bow and fall inwards within the cavern that clawed up through his throat, creeped out his eyes and nose. He desperately wanted the man to acknowledge him.

Hannibal’s hand drifted slightly pointing out another vivid star not far from the first.

“The Perseus constellation, contains the Alpha Persei supergiant as its’ most notable star. The galactic plane of the Milky Way passes through this constellation. Both galaxies are set to collide within the next four billion years, though I hardly believe we’ll be around for that.”

Hearing a dry joke from him felt new to Will’s ears, but not unwelcomed.

“The story of Andromeda and Perseus is far from tragic, though it begins with a great sacrifice. In Latin she is the Mulier Catenata, the chained woman. Poseidon became enraged after her mother Cassiopeia claimed that Andromeda’s beauty was superior to that of his Nymphs. In retaliation Cetus, a great sea monster, was sent by Poseidon to destroy Ethiopia, and in a fit of terror, attempting to avoid dire consequence and save his people, Cepheus offered up his daughter Andromeda as sacrifice. She was chained to a rock, gravely awaiting death. By luck, Perseus discovered her, and drawn to her beauty, he slayed Cetus with a diamond sword. Together they brought forth several children and founded the great city of Mycenae. Andromeda was placed in the stars by Athena after her passing.”

He knew this story, having studied his own fair share of mythology during his time in university, but hearing it from Hannibal felt different, almost foreign. Will wanted to shut him up, to force tape over his mouth ( _he’d probably enjoy that_ , he thought to himself) and just sit in silence. However, he couldn’t seem to get his limbs to cooperate. As if, maybe he wanted to let the man speak for the rest of eternity to soothe his intrusive mind.

Disrupting Will’s thoughts, Hannibal continued on.

“Every culture possesses their own mythology of love and passion. An old Chinese legend speaks of two lovers left in everlasting seclusion. Vega, a star in the Lyra constellation, was an immortal celestial princess who was forlorn in her loneliness. Altair, in the Aquilae, or flying eagle, constellation was a mortal man whom Vega fell deeply in love with. Vega promised Altair they would spend their lives side by side in the stars. This promise was met when her father, angry at the suggestion of his daughter marrying a mortal man, placed them both in the sky. Deceitful as he was he positioned them apart to remain alone ad-infinitum.”

A slow-burn of realization dawned on Will. This was Hannibal’s love language. He carved him up, drilled into him physically and manipulatively, but after all of it he lay here and confessed some sort of compassion he felt towards the mess of a man. He didn’t know why, but this set off a fury in Will, from the bottom of his feet to every last hair stuck by sweat to his scalp. A sort of animal rising up that made him want to scream that this wasn’t how you showed love. Will had spent his entire life socially distant and awkward, so yes, maybe he had no place in confirming what is and what is not love, but he was resolutely positive it wasn’t this. He could taste blood in his mouth, but the source unidentifiable. His lungs felt paralyzed. Hannibal continued to speak, placing his arm back down to clasp his own hands over his stomach.

“Stars, specifically prostars, arise from the perfect storm of circumstances. Dense clouds of gas and smoke are disturbed by an outside force. From this, their mass becomes greater until they develop their own gravitational pull. It takes millions of years, but finally the body collapses inwards on itself resulting in grand jets blasting the remaining particles. Essentially, the qualities humans admire most about the stars are created by an explosion.”

Something in Will fractured as he let out a shuttering breath he hadn’t even known he was holding.

“Is that what I am to you? A beautiful explosion caused by you because you pushed me to commit acts of murder. Are those truly your definitions of the ‘perfect circumstances’ Hannibal?”

Will’s response was spat back in a hushed anger. Nothing alluded to Hannibal’s perception of the statements other than the slightest of drops in the corner of his mouth.

“I saw in you what I see in myself Will. One who could understand the eagerness and lust for absolving the world of those unneeded.”

With no hesitation, Will pulled himself up to a semi-reclined position, resting on his forearms, and looked straight at Hannibal.

“What if I had died. Was that one of your alternate endings you’d ever considered.”

The European man continued to avoid the eyes that seemed to drill holes into him.

“The choice was yours to take us over the edge. I had fallen unconscious in your arms before you pulled your grip on my sweater alongside you off the precipice.”

“Not then. The night you gutted me like a fish. The night you slit the throat of someone, a teenage girl, who trusted you just to get back at me like it was some pissing contest.”

There was a still moment where Hannibal seemed to ponder, but Will continued to stare as his shaking increased a notch. He wanted to get a rise out of the man, make him finally bare his teeth in anger.

“With surgical precision I kept faith that you would be fine. Scarred, and pained, but alive. Had you died it would have been unfortunate, but certainly not unconsidered.”

Steam must have been emanating off Will’s skin at this point. The heat of the fever mixing with the cool breeze around him.

“And what if they hadn’t shown up while you were sawing into my skull. You were devoted to feeding me my own brain and indulging yourself in watching me die. You dragged me out of Mason’s clutches, only to throw me back into the face of death with Dolarhyde. What makes you think you can play god Hannibal? How you get to be the final deciding factor in which someone lives or dies? You save me you try to kill me. You hide Abigail from me and led me to insanity while my brain fried in my skull. You eviscerated me on your kitchen floor.”

Will’s voice quivered, vocal cords starting to shake with his increase in volume. Hitting the older man crossed Will’s mind briefly. A part of him feared being thrown over the edge of the boat and left to drown in the event that a physical altercation was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Another part of him felt relief at the idea of finally escaping.

“Some of my actions may have been done in haste, but your survival was always my priority. My fascination with you developed within our first few meetings. You had great potential within you, but you were woefully unaware of it. There simply needed to be a cataclysmic series of events to unearth your true abilities. I wanted nothing more than the perfect life for us.”

“For three years Hannibal, for three fantastic years I had a wife, a step-son. I was happy with my life. Remaining none-the-wiser would have been blissful but you found a way to make me come crawling back. Every goddamn time you found a way to drag me back into bloodshed until I started to enjoy it, and this is how it ended, with you making metaphors out of our twisted romance. We have no home, you won’t even let me know where we are going, our identities aren’t even ours anymore. My name doesn’t even belong to me because Will Graham died when he dived head-first into the ocean. I don’t...I don’t have my fucking dogs.”

He was running a shaking hand over his face, hand grasping a fistful of damp hair in an attempt to turn off the buzzing in his skull as he continued to argue back.

“I want to hate you so much I want to hate you until I scream myself hoarse because you took everything from me, but I can’t. I can’t because I am glued to you. I’ve been adhered to you from the moment I let you crawl inside my brain and situate yourself in my life. Even after you stole me from myself and everything I loved.”

The words tumbled out of Will’s mouth with no hesitation. The edges of his eyes blurred as tears welled up and his breath got caught. With everything in himself he tried to hold the tears in, tried to hold in the keening sound of sorrow threatening to be let out. His skin, covered in goosebumps, felt much too tight.

Hannibal remained staring straight ahead at the sky with a frown gracing his face.

“I hardly think it acceptable for me to carry sole blame for the circumstances we find ourselves in now.”

Will’s fist slammed into the metal ground beneath him; a force felt by both bodies.

“WOULD YOU JUST FUCKING LOOK AT ME!”

He shrieked as his voice cut out with no energy left in his reserves. Finally, the tears spilled over as breaths came too quickly, too short. Choking on gasps, stuck in the same loop of so much darkness so much blood. The entire ocean around him looked black, the blood under the moonlight, filling every corner of his lungs. Vision graying out on the edges. The sound of the soft washes propelling them forwards through the night seeming to vanish as his own racing heartbeat threatened to deafen him. Now the taste of blood was overwhelming. Will could barely process the fact that he’d likely popped stitches, biting down on his lip too hard as he had chewed it to release the pent-up emotion. The world was on fire, but it was freezing simultaneously. Everything was wrong. So incredibly wrong. He slammed his eyelids shut, the palms of his hands coming up to grind his eyes into his skull, as he gave up on trying to will his body to calm down. White spots danced behind his eyelids, but he refused to open them because he knew he could no longer wish himself home. He couldn’t sleep or eat or even breathe because the whole world was upside down and backwards. It had been this way for far too long. Right here, sitting on a sailboat in the middle of nowhere suffocating on his own blood and air, that was how Will Graham was going to die.

Then he felt it. A sensation on his thigh, someone’s hand on him, in a way that made him want to crawl away just to be alone. But the hand remained, gently applying pressure, not asking for anything in return for the moment. The pressure began to ground him, but he continued to violently shiver in place, his breathing still ragged, his body not whole.

“Will. Breathe. Just breathe with me when you are ready.”

A deep voice broke into his state of dissociation. Not loud, but soft and calmly urging him back to reality. Will slowly opened his heavy-lidded eyes as exhaustion begged him to lie down. Hannibal was looking at him, directly at him, his hazel eyes watching with worry. The other man must have recognized that Will was slowly returning to him, because the next touch Will felt was Hannibal’s heavy hand on his chest urging him to slow his breathing to match the other’s.

“I have you Will. I promise I will not hurt you again. Our lives have been greatly changed, but we have the opportunity to build anew with each other.”

The reassurance made Will’s hands go numb, or maybe it was the way the wind had seemed to pick up.

“How do I just let it all go. How do I allow myself to move forwards?”

Desperation for an answer seemed to drip off his lips alongside the trickle of blood from the small tear in the skin.

“One doesn’t choose to let go. You process it, allow yourself to feel the emotions that accompany the thoughts, reminding yourself to remain in what is real. Where your physical being exists. Is there anything more I can do to assist you in grounding yourself?”

Will lets out a slower deeper sigh. The shaking and dizziness continued, he knew had no control over that, and his skin still pulled taught and burned.

“Just stay here with me for a minute.”

Hannibal’s hand drifted to Will’s knee and gave it a tight squeeze as he smiled at him.

“Of course.”

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed; it could have been minutes or hours but that mattered little to Will. When he felt as though he could stand without toppling over head-first onto the deck of the _Iscariot_ , Will looked over to Hannibal and softly motioned that he wanted to get up. Hannibal eased him up, one hand under his arm allowing the younger man to press his weight into him. With his back to Hannibal’s chest, Will was walked back to the cabin, Hannibal’s deep, soft hum of Maurice Ravel’s _Pavane for A Dead Princess_ , buzzing against his clammy skin.

They walked slowly, Will finally deposited on the edge of one of the dining benches. He caught site of the bedroom; sheets still crumpled as he had left them. It was four in the morning now, but it felt as if it had been far longer. He was handed a cup of water and told to drink it slowly, doing so as Hannibal pulled the sheets off, discarding them in the hamper that sat in one of the nearby cupboards. Will was aware that glances were continuously thrown towards him as Hannibal made the bed, smoothing out and replacing the sweat-soaked sheets with new dark maroon ones. He was once more eased up from sitting and sat down on the edge of the bed. Will put his arms up allowing the other man to pull a clean white t-shirt over his head, and down his chest. Hannibal looked at Will’s face, softly prodding his lip and cheek, resting his cool palm across the fevered man’s forehead. He leaned into the cool touch and closed his eyes.

“You have a fever again. I believe you’ve torn a few stitches in your cheek as well. Healing has not been kind to you has it, Will?”

The soft chuckle reverberated in Will’s ears, as he let out a small smile whispering,

“I guess not.”

Left to his devices for a bit as the doctor went to grab the first aid kit and medications, the ill man let his eyes roam around. Though his head still ached his thoughts felt clearer, his regrets stamped out with confirmation that he could trust the man caring for him. Hannibal returned, wasting no time to place on nitrile gloves and prepare the local anesthetic.

“This will sting momentarily. I’ll do your cheek first, before suturing the bite in your lip. Do try not to destroy my handiwork again if you could. I believe returning to a solely liquid diet would be most beneficial for your healing this time around.”

The jab was made lightheartedly, helping cut the tension. Will nodded, hissing at the burn, which quickly subsided into numbness. As Hannibal pulled out the curved needle and the surgical-grade thread, Will spoke slowly with a slight slur in his speech.

“Can you keep talking while you stitch me back up? It helps keep me here.”

Hannibal’s short chuckle and broad smile was the only answer Will received as the needle was threaded.

“Osiris, lord and judge of the dead and the underworld in ancient Egyptian mythology, corresponds to both death and new life. His name is the Latin version derived from Usir meaning ‘powerful’ or ‘mighty’. The mythical Bennu bird, similar to the grey heron, is commonly associated with Osiris, as the bird itself gives rise to life from the ashes of death. Osiris’ brother, Set, grew jealous of his power. After having his wife seduce Osiris, they trapped him in a coffin and sent it down the Nile. As time passed, he succumbed to old age in the coffin and a great tree grew around it. It was Isis, Osiris’s wife, who searched fervently for and was ultimately gifted his body in a pillar from the king of Byblos. Devoted and loyal, Isis was able to bring him back into life. He remains a symbol of rebirth after death.”

They sat in silence after Hannibal finished the story. He was meticulous and careful with each stitch, though there weren’t many to be done. In under an hour all the stitching, disinfecting, and bandaging had been completed, and Will handed 2 small pills and a few slices of bread. He recognized one as the typical opioid, but the other looked unfamiliar.

“I’d prefer to have you take the medication with something in your stomach to avoid having you vomit them back up. The other is for the fever and to help you sleep.”

Hannibal must have recognized the look of uncertainty that crossed Will’s face. Will nodded in response, proceeding to slowly chew and swallow the bread. Immediately after, he washed down the medication with the remaining water in his glass. During that time Hannibal had undressed, placing on a simple pair of soft cotton navy sleep pants over his boxers. He laid down on his side of the bed, slightly propped up by the pillow and wall behind him, his right arm splayed out across the other side. Will took that as his cue to lie down and pressed himself against Hannibal’s side, feeling the warmth of the other man’s skin against his own.

“What would you do if I had died jumping off the cliffside?”

Neither man moved, just listening to the sound of their own hearts beating before Hannibal replied.

“Let myself grieve I suppose. What more is there for a man to do with a splintered heart?”

As the medication began to take hold, he found himself drifting off, the pain he’d felt not long ago becoming a distant memory resting at the back of his mind. Will fell asleep wondering how Winston was doing back in Wolf Trap, and what measures it would take to convince Hannibal to let him get a new dog. 


End file.
